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The Careers of Immigrants in Finland: Empirical Evidence for Genders and Year of Immigration
Abstract
This study offers new empirical evidence on the careers of immigrants in the new host country. The focus is on the effects of gender and year of immigration on employment. Integration of immigrants into labour market is vital since employment determines the outcome of migration at the personal level and for the economy of the host country. We utilise longitudinal micro-level data from Finland and provide evidence from a country where large-scale immigration occurred as late as 2000s. The results suggest that men have longer working careers than women. Especially, the effects of family characteristics differ between men and women. Having underage children is associated with shorter working careers among women while the findings are opposite for men. The differences in the length of career according to the year of arrival appear in the analysis when several individual characteristics are taken into account. Hence, the different composition of immigrants arriving in different times does not fully explain employment outcomes. The results imply that social and economic conditions during the year in which immigration takes place have a lasting impact on future working years. Since the year of immigration and gender are relevant factors in the integration process, policy instruments are needed to improve integration of both genders and in timely manner after arrival.
... Tutkimus tarkastelee myös työvoiman ulkopuolella olemiseen liittyviä tekijöitä, kuten perhetilanteeseen sekä sosiaaliseen ja henkilökohtaiseen elämäntilanteeseen liittyviä seikkoja. Keskeinen lähtökohta on, että muutto osaamisen ja kykyjen perusteella ei poista haasteita, jotka liittyvät kielitaidon hankkimiseen, sosiokulttuurisiin normeihin sopeutumiseen ja työkontekstin ulkopuolisten sosiaalisten verkostojen luomiseen (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022;Koskela, 2020). ...
... Avioliiton perusteella muuttaneet ammattilaiset taas kokevat urakehityksen hidastumista ja kärsivät sosiaalisten verkostojen puutteesta (vrt. Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022). Tarjoamalla saavutettavia ja räätälöityjä koulutuksia ja sertifiointeja voidaan auttaa näitä korkeasti koulutettuja puolisoja muovaamaan osaamistaan työmarkkinoille sopivaan muotoon. ...
... Ulkomaalaistaustaiset äidit voivat kohdata Suomessa lukuisia haasteita, jotka koskevat muun muassa työllistymistä ja sosiaalisia suhteita. Aiempien selvitysten perusteella ulkomaalaistaustaisten äitien työllisyysaste on matalampi kuin suomalaistaus-taisilla äideillä (Larja & Sutela, 2015) ja ulkomaalaistaustaisilla lapsettomilla naisilla (Sutela, 2016;Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022). Esimerkiksi vuonna 2014 ulkomaalaistaustaisten pienten lasten äitien 2 työllisyysaste oli 40 prosenttia, kun suomalaistaustaisilla vastaava luku oli 69 prosenttia (Larja & Sutela, 2015). ...
This comprehensive review provides an overview of the current
state of integration in Finland. The electronic publication is available at https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/165441/TEM_oppaat_1_2024_Kotoutumisen_kokonaiskatsaus_2023.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
... Among immigrants in Finland, lacking work experience is a hindrance to employment. Therefore, the period immediately after immigration seems crucial for accumulating work experience in the host country (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2021). Further, Norwegian researchers have used administrative data and a quasi-experimental design to show that lack of quali ications and skills negatively affect the employment opportunities among young people with mental health problems (Markussen & Røed, 2020). ...
... Most likely, this is a smaller barrier to employment in the Nordic countries today compared to e.g., Southern Europe, due to the fact that responsibilities formerly considered to be familial are now managed, to a relatively large extent, by the Nordic welfare states. Nevertheless, research conducted in Finland has indicated that such responsibilities do pose an employment barrier, particularly for immigrant women, who are more likely to stay home for longer periods following childbirth (Tervola, 2020;Busk & Jauhiainen, 2021). Moreover, the persisting gender employment rate differences in all the Nordic countries (i.e., men being employed to a higher extent than women are) might also be due to, inter alia, gendered differences in societal expectations to care responsibilities. ...
... The state of the economy can be a barrier for a number of different reasons. For example, research from Finland demonstrates that the social and economic conditions during the year of immigration have a lasting impact on future working years for the immigrating individuals (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2021). ...
... As a consequence, conscript service mainly improves the labour market outcome of men, which can then contribute to increased inequality. This is problematic because female migrants' labour market position is worse to begin with than that of male migrants (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022;Busk et al., 2016;Eronen et al., 2014;OECD, 2018). Furthermore, it seems that the labour market capital accumulated during service steers male migrants towards male-dominant professions, such as transportation and security. ...
... Furthermore, it seems that the labour market capital accumulated during service steers male migrants towards male-dominant professions, such as transportation and security. As such, it can enhance existing gender segregation in the labour market (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022;Heikkilä, 2017). ...
This research considers the role that participating in conscript service has for individuals with a migrant background in overcoming barriers to labour market integration. According to previous studies, these barriers include discrimination, previous qualifications not being recognised and a lack of language skills, networks and information. The study is based on 24 interviews conducted with individuals with a migrant background who have performed conscript service in Finland. The research takes place in the context of conscription and mandatory conscript service among male citizens. The findings indicate that conscript service may have some direct and indirect beneficial outcomes for labour market integration. Direct labour market outcomes are particularly related to qualifications acquired during service, which can be directly applied in the civilian labour market. Indirect outcomes are associated with acculturation, such as learning the language and becoming familiar with the host society’s culture and norms. Performing conscript service also facilitates the establishment of social networks, especially with native-born youngsters. Furthermore, conscript service is perceived to have the potential to elevate conscripts’ status in the eyes of potential Finnish employers. As a result, completing conscript service enhances location-specific human capital, and therefore, it can potentially improve labour market integration outcomes.
... Tutkimus tarkastelee myös työvoiman ulkopuolella olemiseen liittyviä tekijöitä, kuten perhetilanteeseen sekä sosiaaliseen ja henkilökohtaiseen elämäntilanteeseen liittyviä seikkoja. Keskeinen lähtökohta on, että muutto osaamisen ja kykyjen perusteella ei poista haasteita, jotka liittyvät kielitaidon hankkimiseen, sosiokulttuurisiin normeihin sopeutumiseen ja työkontekstin ulkopuolisten sosiaalisten verkostojen luomiseen (Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022;Koskela, 2020). ...
... Avioliiton perusteella muuttaneet ammattilaiset taas kokevat urakehityksen hidastumista ja kärsivät sosiaalisten verkostojen puutteesta (vrt. Busk & Jauhiainen, 2022). Tarjoamalla saavutettavia ja räätälöityjä koulutuksia ja sertifiointeja voidaan auttaa näitä korkeasti koulutettuja puolisoja muovaamaan osaamistaan työmarkkinoille sopivaan muotoon. ...
Korkeasti koulutettujen maahanmuuttaneiden nähdään usein kuuluvan kansainväliseen eliittiin sekä kykenevän etsimään töitä globaaleilta työmarkkinoilta ja ylittämään kulttuuriset raja-aidat. Eriarvoisuudet ja valtahierarkiat voivat kuitenkin vaikuttaa myös heidän urapolkuihinsa, kuten työmarkkinoille pääsyyn ja urakehitykseen. Tässä tutkimuksessa käsitellään henkilökohtaisten maahanmuuttosyiden ja työmarkkinaintegraation välisiä kytköksiä tarkastellen erilaisten maahanmuuttosyiden luomia haasteita ja mahdollisuuksia urakehityksen kannalta. Tutkimus perustuu 31 syvähaastatteluun, jotka toteutettiin vuosina 2021–2022 Suomessa asuneiden ja työskennelleiden turkkilaissyntyisten korkeasti koulutettujen ammattilaisten keskuudessa. Tutkimustulokset paljastavat useita paradokseja ja valottavat suomalaisten työmarkkinoiden ongelmallisia puolia. Siinä missä korkeakoulutuksen vuoksi maahan muuttaneet ovat kohdanneet vaikeuksia työelämään siirtymisen myötä, ovat vakituisten työsuhteiden perässä muuttaneet turvanneet itselleen pysyvät oleskeluluvat ja nauttivat melko vakaasta urakehityksestä. Maahanmuutto Suomen kansalaisen puolisona näyttää välillisesti hyödyttävän ammattilaisia puolison verkostojen ja turvatumman aseman kautta. Joissain tilanteissa yrittäjyys tarjoaa viimeisen mahdollisuuden uralla etenemiseen ja oleskeluluvan pidentämiseen. Tutkimuksen mukaan rakenteelliset tekijät, kuten kansalaisuuteen ja oleskelulupiin liittyvät säännöt, asettavat kotoutumiselle esteitä ja edellyttävät resurssien strategista käyttöä niiden ylittämiseksi.
Future fertility is a key input when charting the sustainability of social security systems, and declining fertility is often expected to put pressure on economic indicators, such as pension burden. Such expectations are based on a narrow view of the impact of fertility on the economy, focusing on age structure. Dynamic impacts—for instance, the potential for increased human capital for smaller cohorts—are mostly ignored. We use a dynamic longitudinal microsimulation model to explore the extent to which investments in human capital could offset the adverse economic impact of low fertility. Our research context is Finland, the fastest aging European country and the site of dramatic fertility declines and stagnant educational levels in the 2020s. We find that an ambitious but simple human capital investment strategy that keeps the total investment constant despite declining cohort size, thereby increasing per capita investment, can offset the negative impact of a smaller labor force on the pension burden. Human capital investment not only reduces pension burden but also increases working years, pension income, retirement years, and longevity. Policies focusing on human capital investment are likely a viable strategy to maintain economic sustainability.
Highly skilled migrants are often perceived as transnational elites with the capacity to access global employment opportunities and navigate cultural boundaries seamlessly. However, their career trajectories can be shaped by inequalities and power hierarchies that affect labour market entry and career progression. This study investigates the relationship between personal immigration motivations and labour market integration, analysing how different reasons for migration-or for obtaining residence permits-create varied challenges and opportunities for career advancement. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews conducted between 2021 and 2022 with Turkey-born highly skilled professionals residing and working in Finland, this research highlights the unique obstacles these professionals face when settling in a new country, often driven by the aspiration to establish permanence and acquire citizenship through naturalization. The findings reveal several paradoxes within the Finnish labour market. The interviewees who migrated through higher education programs struggled to transition into working life, while those who arrived with permanent job contracts generally secured permanent residence permits and experienced relatively stable career development. Furthermore, migration through marriage to a Finnish national provided indirect advantages, such as access to a spouse's professional networks and a greater sense of security. In certain cases, entrepreneurship emerged as a last-resort strategy for career progression and for extending residence permits. The study argues that structural factors-particularly residence permit regulations linked to citizenship-create barriers to labour market integration, necessitating strategic resource utilisation to navigate these challenges effectively.
This article focuses on young lifestyle migrants in Arctic Finland, individuals who can be described as active agents of their own fate in having made a conscious choice to move to a place they consider worth living in. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, the study brings to light newcomers’ motivations for migrating to a geographically remote area and discusses structural conditions that support the process of moving to Finnish Lapland. The search for personal wellbeing and a desire to construct “authentic” lifestyles in rural environments emerged as driving factors for young people who consider moving to the Arctic. While access to nature and nature-based leisure activities proved to be the most attractive feature of the region, opportunities to work in the tourism industry, well-connected transport infrastructures and educational opportunities also figured significantly in the migrants’ decisions. Social media channels play a pivotal role as a platform promoting their lifestyle. In engaging regularly with young people who have moved to the Arctic, where they pursue their chosen lifestyle in a harsh climate with high living costs, the research challenges the prevailing argument in the lifestyle migration debate whereby middle-class people move to places with lower living costs and sunny climates.
This study estimates the labor market effects of a work-first policy aimed at speeding up the labor market integration of refugees. The policy added new requirements for refugees to actively search for jobs and to participate in on-the-job training immediately upon arrival in the host country, Denmark. The requirements were added to an existing policy that emphasizes human capital investments in language training. The results show that the work-first policy speeded up entry into regular jobs for men, but they find work in precarious jobs with few hours. Long-run effects are uncertain since the policy crowds out language investments but raises enrollment in education. The policy had no or very small effects for women, which is partly explained by a lower treatment intensity for women.
Abstract This study compares the longitudinal dynamics of labor market integration between asylum refugees, resettled refugees and their reunited family members. The labor market integration of the three refugee groups are compared by using unique longitudinal register data of total refugee population in Finland during 2003–2015. The results show that among males, family reunion migrants integrate faster than asylum refugees and resettled refugees. Contrary to the previous results from Nordic countries, among females, resettled refugees integrate the fastest and family reunion migrants demonstrate the slowest integration. The overall small differences between admission categories are for the large part explained by discrepancies in observed factors such as fertility patterns among females and arrival during recession among males.
This paper analyses how age at immigration to Sweden and getting a first foothold in the labor market is related. We estimate hazard rate models using registry data on all persons who arrived in each of the years 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002. The results show that the number of years taken to get a foothold in the Swedish labor market increases rapidly by age among immigrants from middle- and low-income countries aged 40+. Most individuals who are born in middle- or low-income countries who immigrate after age 50 never get a foothold in the Swedish labor market.
JEL codes
J15 J21 J61
We ask (1) how the position of an ethnic (majority or minority) group in the local ethnic hierarchy affects the amount of recruitment discrimination faced by applicants from that group, and (2) whether gender discrimination is dependent on occupational gender stereotypes in the same way among ethnic majority and minority applicants. We use the situation testing method for the first time in Finland: In an experimental study (Study 1), 103 dentistry students made recruitment decisions based on the CVs of three bogus applicants from different ethnic groups (Finnish, Austrian and Polish) and in a field experiment (Study 2), four test applicants (male and female Finns and Russians) with equivalent CVs applied for 1,258 vacant jobs, addressing gender discrimination in relation to occupational gender stereotypes as well as ethnic discrimination. Together these studies cover both skilled (Study 1) and semi-skilled jobs (Study 2) and applicants from ethnic minority groups originating from within as well as outside the EU. Results show that majority group members are more likely to be hired compared to minority members (both Studies) and that minority members from a higher status group are more likely to be hired than those from a lower status group (Study 1). Results also show that male applicants from the majority group were discriminated compared to women in occupations characterised as feminine, while Russian men faced recruitment discrimination compared to Russian women independently of the job’s gender stereotype (Study 2). Implications of recruitment discrimination based on ethnicity and gender are discussed.
We study the short-term trajectories of employment, hours worked, and real wages of immigrants in Canada and the USA using nationally representative longitudinal datasets covering 1996–2008. Models with person fixed effects show that, on average, immigrant men in Canada do not experience any relative growth in these three outcomes compared to men born in Canada. Immigrant men in the USA, on the other hand, experience positive annual growth in all three domains relative to US-born men. This difference is largely on account of low-educated immigrant men, who experience faster or longer periods of relative growth in employment and wages in the USA than in Canada. We further compare longitudinal and cross-sectional trajectories and find that the latter over-estimate wage growth of earlier arrivals, presumably reflecting selective return migration.
The national origin of an individual's human capital is a crucial determinant of its value. Education and labor market experience acquired abroad are significantly less valued than human capital obtained domestically. This difference can fully explain the earnings disadvantage of immigrants relative to comparable natives in Israel. Variation in the return to foreign schooling across origin countries may reflect differences in its quality and compatibility with the host labor market. The return to foreign experience is generally insignificant. Acquiring additional education following immigration appears to confer a compound benefit by raising the return to education acquired abroad.
This paper assesses the employment and earnings trajectories of refugee and family reunion category immigrants in Canada and Sweden using two national level sources of data. The Canadian Immigration Database (IMDB) is a file that links the intake record of post 1979 immigrants with annual taxation records. The 2007 Swedish Register Data includes information on all legal permanent residents. Using standard regression methods we compare labour force outcomes of age-sex-schooling-place of birth cohorts looking specifically at non-economic (family reunion and refugee intake) immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. We find that the employment and earning trajectories of the selected non-economic migrant groups are quite similar in the two host countries, although earnings are higher in Canada than in Sweden.
We estimate the effect of active labour-market programmes on the exit rate to regular employment for non-western immigrants in Denmark who receive social assistance. We use the timing-of-events duration model and rich administrative data. We find large positive post-programme effects, and, surprisingly, even most in-programme effects are positive. The effects are largest for subsidized employment programmes, but effects are also large and significant for direct employment programmes and other programmes. Effects are larger if programmes begin after six months of unemployment. Implications of our estimates are illustrated by calculating effects on the duration to regular employment over a five-year period.
JEL classification codes
J64, J24, J68, J61, C41
Using 1980-–2000 Census data to study the impact of source country characteristics on married adult immigrants' labor supply assimilation profiles, we find that immigrant women from countries with high female labor supply persistently work more than those from low-female-supply countries. While both groups of women work less than comparable natives on arrival, women from high-female-participation countries eventually close the gap with natives entirely, and women from low-female-labor supply countries eliminate most of it. Men's labor supply is unaffected by source country female participation, suggesting that the findings on women reflect notions of gender roles. (c)© 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This paper is concerned with the comparison of alternative empirical techniques (cross section, synthetic cohort and panel
data) for testing the immigrant assimilation hypothesis (IAH). The IAH specifies that immigrants acquire destination relevant
human capital, but at a decreasing rate, with duration in the destination. Hence, ceteris paribus, earnings would be expected
to increase, at a decreasing rate, with duration. The true assimilation effects may be obscured, however, in analyses of synthetic
cohort or panel (longitudinal) data if there are period effects. That is, if the effect on earnings of duration in the destination
varies over time. The empirical analysis uses a matched sample of adult male immigrants from the 1983 and 1995 Censuses of
Israel. The matched data show that selective exit from the labor force (due to death, absence from the labor force, and inability
to match, but not the remigration of immigrants) is associated with lower earnings in 1983. This biases upward the earnings
assimilation estimated by the synthetic cohort method. The earnings data are also consistent with the hypothesis that the
mass immigration to Israel from 1989 to 1995 raised the return (price) to Israeli-specific human capital among long-duration
immigrants sufficiently to more than offset the greater increase in units of destination human capital acquired by more recent
immigrants. As a result, long-duration immigrants experienced a steeper increase in earnings from 1983 to 1995. This annulled
the true assimilation effects from 1983 to 1995. Longitudinal tests of IAH which assume that the returns to destination-specific
skills remained constant (i.e., that there are no period effects) are biased against supporting the IAH if these returns increased.
This article studies the relationship between past immigration experiences of the host country and the way new immigrants enter the labor market. We focus on two countries—Finland and Sweden—that have similar formal institutions but starkly different immigration histories. In both countries, immigrants tend to find their first jobs in low-paying establishments, where the manager and colleagues share their ethnic background. The associations between background characteristics, time to a first job, other entry job characteristics, earnings dynamics, and job stability are also remarkably similar. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the host country’s immigration history plays a limited role in shaping the integration process.
Global careers, and highly skilled expatriates employing their talent in diverse contexts of the world tend to be conceptualized as 'male', and recognized diplomas represent employability. Despite the increasing feminization of migration, highly skilled female migrants and their contributions to economies through careers or entrepreneurship remain overlooked. Many obstacles impede the full employment of their talents. We review extant literature and argue that female migrant talent merits more detailed conceptual attention. By analyzing interview data from 2010 to 2019 in two advanced European countries, we found that female migrants suffer from brain waste in multiple ways, partly due to external institutional aspects and discrimination, and partly due to inherent internalized practices and sociocultural norms. We call for greater intersectionality and interdisciplinarity in examining equality to advance female economic participation. Private and public sectors may improve female talent perception, integration and employment by developing specific responses to the problems identified.
This chapter reexamines the empirical basis for two “facts” that seem to be found in most cross-section studies of immigrant earnings: (1) the earnings of immigrants grow rapidly as they assimilate into the United States; and (2) this rapid growth leads to many immigrants overtaking the earnings of the natives within 10-15 years after immigration. Using the 1970 and 1980 U.S. Censuses, this chapter studies the earnings growth experienced by specific immigrant cohorts during the period 1970-80. It is found that within-cohort growth is significantly smaller than the growth predicted by cross-section regressions for most immigrant groups. This differential is consistent with the hypothesis that there has been a secular decline in the “quality” of immigrants admitted to the United States.
This article considers the possibilities and limits of human‐capital credentials in entering the labor market for immigrants in Finland. It reports findings of a correspondence study on how employers respond to job applicants of five different backgrounds who were otherwise equivalently matched on various demographic and human‐capital characteristics. The findings strongly indicate the continuing salience of ethnicity in securing employment opportunities in the Finnish labor market. Employers significantly prefer Finnish applicants over ethnic candidates, and within ethnic applicants, they prefer candidates with a European name over a non‐European name. They further show that locally acquired human capital provides a better payoff only when the job candidate belongs to a group that is placed higher on the ethnic preference ladder. Drawing on the empirical observations, the article thus suggests that a recruitment process driven by abstract or impersonal criteria and governed by mere considerations of human capital in real‐life situations is much less prevalent than often claimed.
Aim:
In population registers, information on completed schooling is either missing or misclassified for a large proportion of newly arrived immigrants. It is unclear how quickly the information is updated and whether misclassification, i.e., that the wrong level of education is recorded, biases empirical estimates.
Methods:
We use unique linked Swedish and Finnish register data to determine the extent of such mismeasurement. By running logistic regressions on zero earnings, we also illustrate how mismeasurement might influence the estimated effects of education on health or labour market outcomes.
Results:
We find a considerable bias in estimates based on Swedish records of educational attainment during immigrants' first few years in the country. Misclassification is additionally very common, even when information on educational attainment exists.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that research and policies using recently arrived immigrants' completed schooling as a determinant of socioeconomic integration need to be interpreted with care.
A growing body of programme evaluation literature recognises immigrants as a disadvantaged group in European labour markets and investigates the employment effects of Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs) on this subgroup. So far, however, there is no systematic review establishing which ALMPs are effective for immigrants. Using a meta-analysis, we condense 93 estimates from 33 empirical studies of the effectiveness of four types of ALMPs employed across Europe to combat immigrant unemployment: training, job search assistance, wage subsidies and subsidised public sector employment. We find that only wage subsidies can be confidently recommended to European policy-makers. Jel codes: J15, J61, J68, I38
We use European Social Survey and Labour Force Survey data from 2002 to 2012 to estimate the causal effect of years of education on European natives' opinion toward immigration, by exploiting the exogenous discontinuity generated by reforms in compulsory education in Europe in the 1940s through the 1990s. Our findings show that higher levels of education lead to a more positive reported attitude toward immigrants. We also investigate the mechanisms behind the effect of education on reported attitudes by evaluating both economic and non-economic channels. We find that higher levels of education place individuals in occupations that are less exposed to the negative effects of migration, although not in sectors/occupations where the share of migrants is necessarily smaller, suggesting that migrants and low-educated natives may be complementary rather than substitutes in the labour market. In addition, education alters values and the cognitive assessment of the role of immigration in host societies, with a positive effect on reported attitude toward diversity and on the assessment of immigration's role in host countries. Our findings suggest that education as a policy instrument can increase social cohesion in societies that are subject to large immigration flows.
This article focuses on the position of immigrants in the Finnish labour market and the differences in labour market performance according to the immigrants' demographic characteristics. It is investigated whether there are differences in vulnerability on the basis of unemployment levels among immigrants of different origins. The data consist of official gross-stream data of the whole working-age population who moved to Finland from abroad in 1993 and 2002 and their position in the labour market one year after immigration. Theories about the immigrants' position in the labour market shape the analysis. The study shows a high unemployment level in Finland during the economic depression of the early 1990s among immigrants. The situation improved in the 2000s due to Finland's economic recovery. The most successful newcomers were Westerners, while those from the Third World faced more problems. Immigrants' cultural proximity to mainstream Finns increased the success in the labour market.
We examine the impact of restructuring active labor market programs for unemployed immigrants in Finland. Exploiting a discontinuity in the phase-in rules of the reform, we find that it increased compliers’ cumulative earnings by 47% over a 10-year follow-up period. We attribute these improvements to a more efficient use of existing resources. The reform did not affect total days in training, but it did modify the content toward training specifically designed for immigrants.
The employment integration of immigrants and in particular refugees in Swedish society has been the subject of many debates and constitutes one of the major political challenges faced in the last two decades. Like in many European countries, refugees are more likely to be unemployed, have temporary jobs and lower income. Most studies of immigrant economic integration have been undertaken at the national level, taking into account place of birth, but not by admission status. This study focuses on the employment integration by admission status by looking at the outcomes for resettled refugees, asylum claimants (asylum-seekers who may subsequently obtain a residence permit), and immigrants who arrive via family reunion migration. Using logistic regression methods we estimate the probability of having a job after controlling for a set of personal and immigrant intake characteristics as well as contextual factors. The results of the analysis indicate that family reunion immigrants have a faster employment attachment than asylum claimants which in turn have faster employment integration than resettled refugees in the Swedish labour market. The understanding of the results of the analysis is that selection processes (self-selection as well as selection through policy mechanisms) and networks are important factors explaining the employment integration of immigrants.
Immigration policies reflect to varying degrees the calibration and stratification of desirable knowledge. The criteria adopted have varied across countries and immigration systems. However, despite the evidence that skilled women migrate more than men, little attention has been paid to the extent to which immigration policies impact differently on women and men and result in gender inequalities, and how the valuation of skills is gendered in its criteria and outcomes. Several European states have developed policies to attract the (highly) skilled in an attempt to make themselves as competitive as possible within a knowledge economy. The key criteria are salaries and educational qualifications which, together with the differential evaluation of skills, produce gender outcomes. This article explores how European policies for the (highly) skilled produce and reinforce inequalities in gendered circulations, not just between women and men, but also in terms of intersectional differences, such as race/nationality and age.
Policy Implications
Publish more disaggregated data by gender, race/nationality and age to support analysis of the implications of immigration policies.
Develop gender‐based and intersectional assessments of immigration policies.
Encourage states and international organizations to take into account the (in)equality aspects in the development of immigration policies.
We exploit a large and long longitudinal dataset to estimate the immigrant-native earnings gap at entry and over time for the UK between 1978 and 2006. That is, we attempt to separately estimate cohort and assimilation effects. We also estimate the associated immigrant earnings growth rate and immigrant-native earnings convergence rate. Our estimates suggest that immigrants from more recent cohorts fare better than earlier ones at entry. Furthermore, the earnings of immigrants from more recent cohorts catch up faster with natives' earnings. While the convergence took over 30 years for those entering in the post-war, it only took half as long for those entering in the early 2000s. This earnings growth is fastest in the first 10 years, and it considerably slows down after 30 years.
This study examines immigrants’ employment careers and their (dis)similarity with careers of the native-born in West Germany. Applying the sequence analysis technique, the study shows that ethnic Germans born abroad and immigrants from EU-15 countries experience employment patterns more similar to those of native-born Germans than do other immigrant groups. The career paths of labor migrants from Turkey remain extremely dissimilar to those of Germans, even when differences in the age structure and the educational level are taken into account. Long and frequent unemployment are among the factors contributing to this dissimilarity. Immigrants, particularly Turks, are not only more likely to be long-term unemployed, they are also pushed into unskilled occupations. The second-generation immigrants, although displaying the strongest degree of similarity to the employment career patterns of native-born Germans, do not fully catch up with the socio-demographically comparable native-born when it comes to occupational assimilation.
This paper first presents a brief historical overview of immigration in Europe. We then provide (and distinguishing between EU and non-EU immigrants) a comprehensive analysis of the skill structures of immigrants and their labor market integration in the different European countries, their position in the wage distribution, and the situation of their children, and discuss the disadvantage of immigrants and their children relative to natives. We show that immigrants – in particular those from non-EU countries – are severely disadvantaged in most countries, even if we compare them to natives with the same measurable skills. We conclude with a discussion of the role of regulations and institutions as one possible mechanism for these findings, and suggest directions for future research.
This article presents an exploration of the employment status of various groups of immigrant women in the Swedish labor market in the period 1970–1995. Since employment is one of the key components for the integration of immigrants, it is interesting to study what factors determine whether or not immigrants become employed after entering Sweden. Numerous studies have analyzed the labor market integration of immigrant men, whereas the integration of women still has received less attention (Ekberg, 1983, 1991; Hammarstedt, 2001; Scott, 1999). This study can be seen as a contribution to an increase in the knowledge of the labor market integration of female immigrants in Sweden.
This paper surveys recent empirical studies on the economic impacts of immigration. The survey first examines the magnitude of immigration as an economic phenomenon in various host countries. The second part deals with the assimilation of immigrant workers into host-country labor markets and concomitant effects for natives. The paper then turns to immigration's impact for the public finances of host countries. The final section considers emerging topics in the study of immigration. The survey particularly emphasizes the recent experiences of Northern Europe and Scandinavia and relevant lessons from traditional destination countries like the US.
Using evidence on variation in the gender gap in labor force participation rates (LFPR) across home country groups in the United States, this paper analyzes cross-country differences in these gaps. The empirical evidence reveals that for first generation immigrants, over half of the overall variation in the gender gap in LFPR is attributable to home country LFPR. This suggests that there exists a permanent, portable factor, i.e., culture, that is not captured by observed human capital measures, that affects outcomes. The smaller role of home country LFPR for second-and-higher generation immigrants, provides evidence of cultural assimilation as well.
In this paper, we analyse differences in the cyclical pattern of employment and wages of immigrants and natives for two large immigrant receiving countries, Germany and the UK. We show that, despite large differences in their immigrant populations, there are similar and significant differences in cyclical responses between immigrants and natives in both countries, even conditional on education, age, and location. We decompose changes in outcomes into a secular trend and a business cycle component. We find significantly larger unemployment responses to economic shocks for low-skilled workers relative to high-skilled workers and for immigrants relative to natives within the same skill group. There is little evidence for differential wage responses to economic shocks. We offer three explanations for these findings: an equilibrium search model, where immigrants experience higher job separation rates, a model of dual labour markets, and differences in the complementarity of immigrants and natives to capital.